You license your work for hosting on SciFi-Stories for a minimum period of TWO YEARS in our free area after which it's moved to our archives area (accessible by paying members) for a minimum of two more years. After this mandatory hosting period you have the option of having it removed from the site if you wish to do so.

Is just setting a minimum time you can have the story and is not setting any exclusive time frames.

That's good, because it means those of us who don't mind the extra exposure can start populating the site with our existing sci-fi stories. Such as my time travel and Damsel in Distress stories. And CW can put up a few too.

It may also save queries later if you clarify that a request for removal from one site will (or will not) result in a removal from all related sites - subject to the time requirements.
I agree with the availability requirement, though it may be worth considering the option to move it to paid access archives earlier, thus allowing authors distribution without the Amazon 'lowest price' restriction hitting them.

though it may be worth considering the option to move it to paid access archives earlier, thus allowing authors distribution without the Amazon 'lowest price' restriction hitting them.

This is available to all authors on all sites right now. An author can make their stories available only to premier members whenever they feel like. Doesn't work very well on FS and SFS yet cause they're free for all.

I'm making modification for the payment handling system. When done, all the sites will become the same as SOL with two-tier membership levels. One payment at any of the sites unlocks premier features on all the sites.

Please do so over the next few days. I'm in the middle of revising my DiD stories and should have them ready for uploading in a few days. But once I know the universe is Up is it OK to put the DiD Rules book across to it.

The submission "wizard" does not include the markdown format, '.md.txt' provision. A few of us (at least myself and an author who I edit) have found that format very convenient, as we write in Markdown and hence have no need to make additional conversions. Since both SOL and FS accommodate '.md.txt' could you also include that in scifistories.com ? Thanks.

That's good, because it means those of us who don't mind the extra exposure can start populating the site with our existing sci-fi stories. Such as my time travel and Damsel in Distress stories. And CW can put up a few too.

I haven't had a chance to examine it yet. For those who have, what are the 'sexual' limitations (do they have to be 'kid friendly', are 'naugty words' allowed, or can they contain 'standard book fare'? I've got quite a few sci-fi stories, but I'm not sure how many I can submit.

If you have your own stories site and you post your stories here on SciFi-Stories too, you give permission to SciFi-Stories to take necessary action to keep your stories on WLPC's sites up-to-date and in sync with the versions on your own site at our discretion.

Does that mean Lazeez will visit everyone's site and download anything newer than is on Scifi, or merely that's he'll complain if someone notices a difference? (That seems like a lot of wasted moderator time!)

I'm also nervous about the 'minimum time' restriction. I posted a story to FS which my readers responded poorly to, so I 'unpublished' the work. In that case, I left it up on FS, but I can see yanking it if it'll ultimately affect my other works. I'm taking it such actions are now forbidden on SciFi? What about if Amazon or Lulu launch a complaint about potential copyright violations? Can/should be remove the story until the violation is investigated, or according to the contract simply leave it up since it's already been submitted?

Hopefully Lazeez will answer the question for you. But I took it as his way of having you give permission to harvest the story from your site if you try to do what a few have done at SoL by posting part of the story at SoL and the rest on their own site. With that rule, he has a legal right to get a copy from your site and post it. It's an effective counter to the behaviour of a certain author who got himself banned from SoL a few times.

I think in this respect the important factor will be if the site is geared for all age groups or for the mature (adult) audience only. A lot of scifi fans are in the younger crowds.

I suspect he's planning to use age categories to protect readers, though it sounds like it's not a kid-friendly site.

Personally, I'd prefer if he adjusted it slightly so it better matches Amazon and other publishing sites with a 'no-sex under 16' restriction. At least, that way, we'd know we had to modify the SOL stories to fit the site. I don't object to that, though I'll have to ask about my 'pseudo-incest' stories.

Another issue for Lazeez to consider, speaking of author websites, is getting them to promote the new website to build it beyond the SOL reader base. If each author with their own website includes links to the book, that'll introduce the site to reader's who'd never see it other than on Amazon or similar sites. If he offered links (in author blog's) in exchange for SciFi links on their sites, he'd probably get quite a few author's agreeing. But again, that's up to him to determine for himself.

Does that mean Lazeez will visit everyone's site and download anything newer than is on Scifi, or merely that's he'll complain if someone notices a difference? (That seems like a lot of wasted moderator time!)

This actually depends. We're not going to police every author's site. I added this clause because few authors in the past poste on SOL to attract readers to their site, so they kept their own site ahead, all the time. So if I know an author has his own site, and I notice that his postings on SOL are garnering less and less views, then I know something is up and then I just keep an eye on it. If it's too much, then I do take action by copying the files from the author's site over to here.

I'm also nervous about the 'minimum time' restriction. I posted a story to FS which my readers responded poorly to, so I 'unpublished' the work. In that case, I left it up on FS, but I can see yanking it if it'll ultimately affect my other works. I'm taking it such actions are now forbidden on SciFi?

Yes, if you post it, it stays for the duration specified. However, I'm not an unreasonable person, things can be discussed.

What about if Amazon or Lulu launch a complaint about potential copyright violations? Can/should be remove the story until the violation is investigated, or according to the contract simply leave it up since it's already been submitted?

Each case will be considered on its own merits. There is no blanket ironclad non-changeable, non-overrulable rule.

When I finish implementing the cross site payment system, paid current memberships will cover new sites.

Since this is the "Author Hangout" forum, I've got to ask: does that also apply to earned membership, or do we have to earn premiere membership on the new site like we did on FS after already having a free membership on SOL?

Normally, this wouldn't be an issue if authors can post several older stories, but if a given author only has one or two sci-fi stories, it might be more problematic, as was getting a premiere membership on FS when a majority of stories contain sexual references.

Well, it's already generating some interest and usage. Seems you had a good idea to create it.

A lot of people like specialized sites. And most importantly, Google rewards specialized sites with more traffic.

I have some small sites created as static pages that I use to capture traffic from search engines and re-route to SOL, and surprisingly, despite these being tiny sites, with almost zero incoming links, they rank way higher than SOL on Google despite that same content being available on SOL and SOL having thousands of incoming links.

So due to this, I decided to try creating multiple sites. The next one to come is a sex story site.

SOL will remain the one to encompass everything and Finestories the one to encompass all non-sex stories, but I'm planning few more narrow-focus sites.

I hope you get the code to upload to multiple sites working by then. I like to keep SoL as the site where I have everything and like to support your operation by duplicating the stories to the other sites, where relevant. But it's getting to be more and more work to upload to the different sites.

SOL will remain the one to encompass everything and Finestories the one to encompass all non-sex stories, but I'm planning few more narrow-focus sites.

I'm not sure how many we currently have on SOL, but you may want to consider a Romance site and, as always, a LGTB site requiring a separate log-in (from SOL) which will hopefully diminish the 1-bombs. There are plenty of gay story sites, but none with the gravitas of SOL.

Kind of surprised to find the reader reaction given in stars rather than numbers with a description. At least there are ten possible numbers of stars, I remember when Fine Stories has only five options.

LGTB site requiring a separate log-in (from SOL) which will hopefully diminish the 1-bombs. There are plenty of gay story sites, but none with the gravitas of SOL.

I think that's an interesting idea. A quick internet search turned up lots of sites for 'coming out' stories, but the only fiction site near the top was Wattpad. I know ASSTR hosts a mirror of Nifty but I think there's an opportunity for a site for 'mainstream' LGBT stories. I would suggest though that the name is something like LGBTfiction.org, to emphasise escapism rather than hand-wringing worthiness.

In stead of fretting over the scores. Ask if you did your best to tell a good story given your current skills and knowledge. Second what did the writing of this story teach you that will help you improve on your next story.
As long as you give each story your best effort at the time. You should be proud. If you don't give it your best effort with your current skills and knowledge then you did something wrong. I am not qualified to judge any writer's story except to say two little words: "Thank you".
My lack of formal education has its drawbacks and I refuse to lie about it (personal rule).

Lazeez, I just noticed, the new site doesn't display an avatar beside the name on the browser tab or in the bookmarks list for the browser. Is this an oversight, a bug, or just not done yet. Both SoL and FS have the little paper and quill avatar.

I'm actually disappointed on the rare occasions when the votes for one of my stories don't cover the full range from 1 to 10. :)

Ha-ha. I just reached the magical 'full-house score' on my latest story, only it didn't last long (the 3 disappeared as the scores improved in chapter 5). I typically gets lots of 10s, a fair number of 8 & 9s, fewer 7s, and then only a few 1s and 3s (I convinced the 1-bombers to temper the 1s so they could protest the things they really object to).

I know ASSTR hosts a mirror of Nifty but I think there's an opportunity for a site for 'mainstream' LGBT stories. I would suggest though that the name is something like LGBTfiction.org, to emphasise escapism rather than hand-wringing worthiness.

If Lazeez is serious about his 'many small sites' philosophy, maybe he should create separate gay (restricted log-in), lesbian (open to both male and female fans, with caveats about potential abuse), Bi and Trans sites. That would go a long way towards easing the perception that SOL is hostile towards gays, as well as opening the sites to a huge and loyal book buying market.

On a separate note, many story sites offer online book stores, where members can offer their books for sale with a small percentage going to the site for offering the local marketplace. Any opinions on Lazeez's offering something similar as another way of gaining greater financial independence? (Not enforced sale of non-published authors, but the option to list your already published books for sale on the site.)

I am curious how you convinced the 1-bombers, when you don't know who gave the story that rating.

I've detailed this many times here, but my 1-bombers aren't like most. Instead of voting down stories they dislike, my 1-bombers are some of my most loyal fans. They read every single chapter (usually a couple days after they post), and they'll adjust their votes (up for exciting chapters, which are noticeable because there are so few low scores).

I suggested voting 1 for everything was dumb, and illustrated the point by posting a story thread they objected to, pointing out they couldn't protest if they're already voting 1s. Since then, the votes are mostly split between 1s and 3s, with the votes jumping 2 points each whenever I post an exciting chapter.

It's fascinating to watch, but the protests don't affect my attitudes or my subject matter in the least, meaning the protests are meaningless (as you can tell from my Forum diatribes). Instead, the 1-bombs make them feel they're making a 'difference', which it clearly doesn't.

Cover photos aren't showing up on the site. Not sure what the issue is, they just don't show up when the associated chapters do.

Edit: It didn't work with one story, but did with another, so I'm not sure what the issue was.

Also, the inclusion of the first couple letters of the title (an "02 A" button sounds like there are multiple chapter 2 pages divided by letter categories. I'm not saying it's incorrect, but I'm just curious why they're included, and whether I, as the author, can determine what's included in the "Next Chapter" link, as opposed to the name of the chapter.

Update 2: The site only seems to support single word chapter titles, so it translates "02: A Somewhat Friendly Chat" as "02 A".

Is this the way the site was designed to operate? If so, I'll need to abandon all my naming conventions. I can't think of many single letter/word titles for longer stories.

I took a quick look through the posting rules. All I saw for sex limitations is the same no under 14 sex/nudity that applies to SOL

Be that as it may, it doesn't really answer the question of what the expectations are. There's a huge difference between a genre novel that has a few scenes of intimately described missionary sex, and a genre erotica story that has frequent, hardcore, kinky, vulgar fucking.

Is scifistories.com meant to be a copy of the scifi category of SOL or is it intended more as a genre specific and slightly less prudish version of finestories.com? Since the tag list doesn't even have options to indicate quantity of sexual content, I'm a little wary of posting my stuff there and shocking some unsuspecting reader.

Is scifistories.com meant to be a copy of the scifi category of SOL or is it intended more as a genre specific and slightly less prudish version of finestories.com? Since the tag list doesn't even have options to indicate quantity of sexual content, I'm a little wary of posting my stuff there and shocking some unsuspecting reader.

There aren't any specific sex tags, but you do rate the story (12 and under, 16 and under or 18+). The site is explicitly for sci-fi, much of which has a historically distinct sexual component (though young kids love the genre too, not entirely coincidentally).

Pity to poor 17-year-olds, or are they too busy having real sex to be bothered with stories?

Over the years online, I have run across many teenagers who write stories. Funny how many of those teens lied about their ages, just so they could post their stories on popular sites. One of them said it was extremely hard to find decent sites to post a story on.

Hopefully that has started to change, but it wouldn't surprise me to find a few still posting on adult sites.

edited to add: Like here on SOL they are much more likely to get feedback from readers about their efforts.

Understood. Just I thought that was a good opening to remark on the teenagers I have run across by accident when I responded to one of their stories. Most were nicely done with a good plot. In fact they are the reason I try and at least send a thank you note to any writer when I read one of their stories. I can't tell from reading the stories which writers are underage, but I want to encourage them to keep telling their stories.

Over the years online, I have run across many teenagers who write stories. Funny how many of those teens lied about their ages, just so they could post their stories on popular sites. One of them said it was extremely hard to find decent sites to post a story on.

Yeah... Got a good laugh out of the author's notes on one particularly pornographic story I was reading(not on SOL), where I wound up reasonably certain the person posting it wasn't "legally capable" of reading what they were writing due to being underage.

But then, that just points out how bizarre the legal system can be at times, as there are a number of other things(mostly sex related) that teenagers do to themselves, or each other, on a regular basis that only remains legal so long as nobody makes any kind of record of their activities.

The act itself is perfectly legal on one hand. While "the record," be it written, photographic, audio, video, or (audio/video) on the other hand may be illegal on the other. Sometimes doubly so if they are the ones reviewing the means of it being recorded.

Yeah... Got a good laugh out of the author's notes on one particularly pornographic story I was reading(not on SOL), where I wound up reasonably certain the person posting it wasn't "legally capable" of reading what they were writing due to being underage.

Thankfully now with the sites Laz has developed, if I run across someone I think is underage. I will just suggest they use them instead. Those sites will have more than one benefit in my opinion. They will give young writers a place to post and usually get some feedback as to their story.